


backlash

by Sparrows



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, could be read as platonic but why would you, in which percy's gun hurts him and i constantly cry about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 19:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8728051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: It's been hours since the fight at Fort Daxio, and Percy's hands are still shaking.(In which I cry about Animus literally hurting Percy every time it backfires. Percy, why?)





	

**Author's Note:**

> The physical effects of Animus's misfire backlash are inspired by alienfirst's fanart! Go check her out on tumblr or twitter :)

Percy's hands are still shaking.

The right does so more than the left, and he knows exactly why. _Animus,_  he thinks, wearily and with maybe more vitriol than is warranted. He flexes the fingers of his right hand slowly, experimentally, sucking a breath in between his teeth at the stabbing sensation shooting up his forearm. The joints ache, the bones themselves home to a deep-rooted pain that Percy knows from experience will take time to fade.

Until then, he just has to suffer through whatever awful backlash his own _gods-damned_ weapon is inflicting on him. Percy breathes deeply through his nose, turning his hand over so that he can roll each knuckle between his fingers. It soothes the pain, somewhat, but doesn't eradicate it entirely. It's been hours since the fight outside Fort Daxio, and it still hurts. The thought occurs to him, absently, that the intensity this time around might be related to the gun misfiring twice in the span of a few short minutes.

He turns to reach for the glass of water at his bedside table, and has it in his hand and halfway to his mouth when his fingers - then his palm, his forearm, his elbow, his upper arm - all seize at once, agony searing through him from his fingertips to his shoulder, that dull pounding in his temples intensifying to the point that he gives a strangled yell, born half of pain and half of frustration. The glass falls from his twitching hand and shatters against the stone floor, and Percy follows up the yell with a flurry of growled curses, slipping from Common to a string of Elvish curses so intense his old tutors would have blushed to hear it.

"Percy?"

Vex's voice outside his door is muffled by the thick wood, already pitched soft and curious, but he would recognise her anywhere. He grunts through gritted teeth in acknowledgement - aftershocks of pain still carving through muscle and bone, robbing him of the ability to actually speak for now - apparently loud enough that she hears him.

She pushes the door open and steps inside, her footsteps scuffing soft against the flagstones. He can pinpoint the exact moment Vex sees his arm, because she gasps and whispers his name again, immediately dropping to a knee in front of him, pulling his right hand away from his left and cradling it in her own.

Her touch does not hurt the way he had feared it might. Percy watches through heavy-lidded eyes as Vex's fingertips trace along the vivid purple marks on his skin. His veins pulse and throb with the remnants of whatever psychic energy it is that Animus inflicts on its targets, glowing a vivid violet-purple even through his skin.

"When did this happen?" Vex asks, pushing at the rolled cuff of his shirtsleeve where it sits at his elbow, prying at it to confirm that the tainted tracework of Percy's veins continues up further. "You should have told one of us."

Percy shakes his head wearily. "It happened in the fight," he explains, still slowly flexing his fingers and watching the light flare beneath his skin with every pulse of his heart. "It's a side-effect of Animus misfiring. It hurts now, but I'll be--" He pauses and grunts, a quick throb of pain making his fingers curl into a fist for a moment before he uncurls them and continues - "I'll be fine. It just takes time."

Vex shakes her head slowly. "This doesn't _look_ fine, darling. Has Pike seen this?" When he shakes his head in return, fingers still spasming lightly, Vex sighs. Then she looks up, into his eyes, and nearly topples backwards, her own eyes going wide.

"Percy, you - your _eye_ \- what?" she gasps, immediately surging forward again to cup his cheek in her hand. He leans into the touch greedily, comforted by the warmth and texture of her ungloved skin, but he hisses in discomfort as Vex carefully thumbs at the lower eyelid of his right eye, tugging it wider open for a moment. "That's... what the _fuck_ , Percy?"

"As I said: side-effects." He already knows what she sees. He's seen it often enough in the mirror, when this sort of thing happens; he knows she's seeing the ice-blue of his eye turned dark purple, threadwork of half-popped blood vessels spiderwebbing across the white of his eye and turning it the same violet that lights up his arm.

The slow, soft curl of healing magic unwinding along his face is unexpected, but not unwelcome. He relaxes into her touch, one hand against his cheek while the other threads her fingers gently with his, letting his eyes fall shut. "I know I can't convince you to stop using Animus," Vex says quietly, "but please - _please_ , darling... if it's hurting you like this, I want to know so I can _help_."

When Percy opens his eyes again, the veins of his right arm are still purple. But they don't hurt so much, any more. The pain has been mostly chased away, whether through Vex's healing magic or through the simple comfort of her presence, and he smiles a little crookedly. "I'll keep that in mind," he says, squeezing her fingers tight between his.

It will be hours yet, he knows, before the pain fades entirely. But he thinks maybe he can handle it, so long as Vex is there to help.


End file.
